Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-10-22

uureSpOusive pause You're calculating
TO build new one s'pose?'
"Yes, be- Mr.. Talcott rejoined, with
acrimonious promptness.
"Well," he said, "it'll be good thing.
/ s'pose it ought to been done before" He
pulled grass and chewed it undauntedly
for two or three minutes before he went
into the house.
We'll !" said his wife, as she set the
dish Of pork on the table.
Hes set out to build new line fence"
said Mr. Long, taking his seat and showing
his knife UP and down between the tines of
his fork.
His wife turned to look at him. Her
sharp intuition rooted out the dark side of
the statement.
"You hain't had words with him, Elias?"
she said, quick alarm in her pleasant
face. "Now you didn't have no trouble
with him Yesterday about them hens?"
" / told him." said Mr.. Long, reaching
for the coffee-pot, "his hens had been
making topable free in my garden, and
the fence better be fixed up. If he's a
mind TO fare up like fool. don't know
as it's any my concern"
He took swallow from his cup. His
wife watched him wistfully. She looked
dazed
She went about the house that day with
an uneasy apprehension in her face.
Il don't know what to make of it," she
kept thinking, in troubled way.
She knew by the next night. The new
line fence was done. 1t was seven feet high.
There was nothing to be seen across it ex-
cept the upper half of Mr.. Talcott's house.
the tops of the trees and the barn roof. 1t
rose tall and stern and forbidding. And
there WAS no gate 1t was hostile, I'M
compromising barrier It was an effective
monument to Mr.. TalcOtts wrath and re-
sentiment.
The summer passed into the fall, and the
fall became raw and windy, and eventually
snowy. Mr.. Longs tomatoes had not suf-
fered again from Mr. Talcott's mems. They
had ripened finely. They had been eaten
and stewed; they had been made up in
cltsup they had been pulled while green
and sliced and picked.
Mr.. Talcott's fence had accomplished
this, and great deal more. 1t had stood
there like an evil monster, and had never
been crossed. 1t had come down like
curse fro n the skies, and shut off all the
old communication, and turned the old
friendship into a hard enmity, and the old
trust into fixed rancor.
1t became rapidly known that the two
old neighbors were "not on speaking
terms )" and the causes and circumstances
of the rupture were not mystery. 1t was
known, too, that Mrs Long and Mrs. Tai
colt were not active participants in the
rtua rral Tho IlA ,,1o,.o,,+
seemed virtually ended because, in their
tlmid, womanly submissiyene5s, they obeyed
the unspoken commands of their husbands
rather than face the displeasure which
would have followed a defiance of them.
But they smiled when they met each
other; they fingered in the church vesti-
bule to exchange good morning
The autumn days filled the air with the
dim-blue vapor and not unpleasant odor of
bonfire smoke. Mr. Talcott was late with
his. He put it off till his fall cleaning
was done-the garden freed of the dried
and empty bean vines, and raked off; the
weeds pulled up which had fiourished pow
erless for harm during the last month or
two; and which now stood black and
frozen a few dead bushes cut down and
the fruit trees trimmed here and there.
1t was late in November when the pile lay
ready, low down in corner of the plum
dered potato-patch. In some of its rough
hollows lay the remains of thin snow.
Mr.. Talcott lighted it directly after sup
per. Now and then he replenished it at
$ o'clock it was still burning. He sat
down on an old stump to look at it as it
leaped and tiickered itself out, lighting up
broad space around it and shining on the
high fence
Mr.. Talcott sat with his elbows on his
knees and his chin in his hands. There
was a sort of peace in the clear night, and
in the early quiet which had settled down
upon it. He looked around at the still,
bare scene and the pale-gray sky, and felt
something of the tranquility.
A little spark from the subsiding fire
snapped into little pile of dry stalks half
a rod distant, and they famed up. 4 twig
took fire from them and burned to its end,
and loose splinter blazed in its turn He
watched the curious line of light as it ate
its pickering way along. There was deep
deposit of dead leaves drifted up against
the tail fence; they took the alarm, and
glowed and cracked smartly. After that
the flames mounted up and gre 4 broader
and redder-the fence had caught fire.
Mr.. Talcott got up and walked over to
it. Then he returned, with scarcely the
haste that might be looked for, and started
for the pump. He seemed rather to linger
on his way; when he reached it, he stood
moment without doing anything in par
ticular before he filed a wooden pail
which lay near, and went back with it.
The fence was flaming brightly; but he
stopped to pick out a chip which had got
stuck in the sole of his boot and tied the
old wooden muller he wore around his
neck with hands which were not
quite steady. Then he peered all
about him in an oddly guilty
way, emptied his pail of water on the
ground, and went and sat down on the
stump again. lie looked cold and cross
and uneasy, and anything but heroic; but
there was a new-found warmth within
him.
There was quite crowd about the place
half an hour later, looking at the black
ened remains of the line fence-several
men, attracted by the flames, and few
women hastily wrapped up. Mr.. Long
had come out and watched the conhagra-
ton from discreet distance But he had
drawn gradually closer, till he finally
stood poking over the warm cinders with
one foot. Mr.. Talcott stood near bv.
They did not look at each other for a
moment Then the latter spoke, in Il
voice made high and sharp by the great
ness of the effort.
"Went down jest like paper" he said.
az guess there couldn't anybody a.
stopped it. couldn't do nothing against
it-nothing at all !" He felt that he re-
gained by this some of the dignity he had
lost in his own conception; lie looked
relieved.
His neighbor did not reply directly.
The darkness hid his softened, perturbed
expression, and he was not the person to
make it manifest. His tone, when he
spoke, was composed and even condescend-
ing.
According to law" he said II sup
pose I'm called ON to put up the next one,
seeing as you put up this here one I
s'pose | might do it any time l amt 30
terrible busy Just at present"
"Well, said Mr.. Talcott, looking down
the garden, d" [ rather guess you better
build a picket | guess a picket'd do full